The Feelies were a product of the New Jersey suburbs, and Here Before speaks to their origins: its distinctly pastoral feeling is tempered with a slight nervousness and tension, the sound of the city meeting the countryside. It's gorgeous.

Now as before, there are few groups in rock & roll that perform as brilliantly and purposefully as an ensemble as the Feelies, and on Here Before their trademark sound remains a thing of wonder that hasn't been dimmed a bit by the passage of time.

Here, the Feelies simply dig up The Good Earth's pastoral, post-Velvets power-pop -- a sound that ruled college radio airwaves in the mid-80s but which boasts few notable contemporary adherents -- and blissfully strum away as if they were performing in hammocks.

Here Before questions its existence as a new chapter for the band while content to see it closed, mentions of transition and introspection at the core of their story. What you can take from it is that its protagonists are aging gracefully and that, if this is their last hurrah, The Feelies are going out strong.

If anything, Here Before echoes the pastel colors of 1986's The Good Earth, each song a subtle variant of the next, measured and metronomic. This isn't a first-spin grabber, but if you're as patient as the Feelies have been, it might grow on you.

It's largely composed of pretty humdrum strum and twang, defining The Feelies less as the missing link between The Modern Lovers and Vampire Weekend, more as the founders of '80s college rock ordinaire. [Jun 2011, p.82]

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